


Breathless

by korasami



Series: Korrasami Week 2014 [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Basically it's during Korra's recovery, Breathbending, Burns, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Korrasami Week, Korrasami Week 2014, Post-Book 3: Change, implied depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2318138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korasami/pseuds/korasami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami was under the delusion that Korra would be exactly as she had been once she climbed over her current hill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of Korrasami Week - Breathless
> 
> Man, this is sad business. Why do I keep writing sad stuff for Korrasami Week?

Afterwards, Asami was the first to ask Korra what actually happened. It wasn’t that nobody else cared, quite the contrary. Mako had been avoiding Korra since she had woken (although according to Tonraq, he had been by her side for a fortnight previous.) Bolin on the other hand, visited every day laden with gifts, not broaching any foul subjects in the fear that they would hurt.

They did, of course, but Korra couldn’t help feeling secretly thankful when Asami cautiously approached her for information.

Conversations in the beginning were stunted. Korra pretended vainly not to hear, so Asami sat next to her bed patiently as she waited for an answer. Once she did (several minutes after the questions were posed), her voice was tight.

It wasn’t for several hours after the fact that Korra began to cry, silently but with fervor, and at first Asami didn’t notice right away. Alternating between her novel and the back of Korra’s hair for the past long while would allow for that.

“Nightmare,” Korra mumbled, after she felt Asami’s hand stroke her back.

Asami’s eyes must have appeared as defeated as Korra felt inside. She continued moving her hand in comforting patterns, but the near-violent tremble of Korra’s body couldn’t be soothed.

“Was it our conversation that made you feel this way?” Asami asked, prepared to leave if Korra needed. (When Asami was a young girl, she remembered everyone hounding her incessantly about her mother’s death; the nagging of claustrophobia never truly left her memory. She never wanted to inflict that upon anyone, ever.) Korra relaxed at the sound of Asami’s voice—not visibly, but Asami could feel the change in disposition under her fingertips.

To Asami, it seemed as if Korra was conflicted in her pause. In reality, Korra momentarily forgot how to speak.

“No,” she said finally, feeling helpless at her inability to look Asami in the eyes. “Can you…can you help me sit up?”

She shouldn’t have been startled at the request. She really shouldn’t have. Asami’s perception that Korra was brave, brash, and stubborn at heart had never truly left her (and would always remain in the back of her mind, so when Korra was fully healed, her image would only shift so much. Of course, Asami was under the delusion that Korra would be exactly as she had been once she climbed over her current hill.) But there she was: scared, humble, and too fragile to belong to the name, _Korra_.

Asami knew she was being selfish.

That didn’t stop her from helping. Even if this wasn’t Korra.

From her bed, Korra could see dawn rising. Rays of light filtered through brightly-colored glass—which filled the room with optimism, but it wasn’t contagious. Under Asami’s eyes were dark, and Korra wondered: were hers the same? Asami appeared different, too. Aged, perhaps, hardened by anguish and burden. Korra speculated she looked quite the opposite. (Weak, naïve, destitute.) Korra knew she looked quite the opposite.

“Do you know what happened to the Earth Queen?” Korra asked, and her sudden query juxtaposed with the quiet morning.

“Oh,” Asami said, realizing she didn’t. (Nobody mentioned politics around her, not since her father exposed his true colors. Maybe they didn’t trust her.) She told her as such.

“Mako told me, back in Misty Palms Oasis. Za…Z… _you know_. He,” Korra’s struggle to speak was obvious, and it pained Asami to watch.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Asami told her, staring into her unfocused blue eyes.

Korra knew she was honest, but that made her even more motivated to speak. “He used airbending to suffocate her. Took her breath away.”

“ _What_?” Asami gasped.

Korra would have nodded, if her head would move. “Tenzin wanted to keep it a secret. Didn’t want anyone to be afraid of the Air Nomads.”

Asami nodded for her. “I see.”

Silence spilled around them, so they stayed there; one woman on her death bed and the other respecting that to the best of her ability. Asami wished to ask what Korra meant by bring this up, but no words came. She understood this was probably for the best so didn’t fight back.

Waiting for Korra to make the next move was tedious. But Asami held out.

“He did that to me, you know.”

(When Asami was thirteen, she would burn herself. Not to the extent where her skin would blister, just light touches of a lit match to her pale skin. To feel as her mother had, was her excuse. Really, she just wanted to feel something at all. When Asami was fifteen, the first boy she’d ever kissed had noticed the scars remaining. Nothing anything major, just little discolorations of old memories, but they told a story she hadn’t wished to relive. The boy forced her to tell her father, and within the hour, Asami had been a sobbing mess at his feet. She had no choice but to tell him about the harm she had done to herself, for he already knew something was the matter, and the way she had wept out the blunt admittance as if it were an arrow in her shoulder would be scarred in her ears forever.)

(The way Korra had spoken reminded Asami of that moment.)

“He pulled every last drop of oxygen out of my body,” Korra reiterated, as if she was confirming the fact to herself. “I almost died.”

Asami didn’t move, or speak.

“Well?” Korra said, her voice exhibiting more passion than it had in months. “ _How does that make you feel_?”

Korra was in Asami’s face now. Not physically, as she could barely move her fingers, but mentally she was spitting around the room.

“Korra, that’s all over,” Asami said, making sure her voice was gentle without being patronizing. “Zah—the man who did this to you is long gone. He isn’t coming back for you, for me, or for the airbenders. You survived! Now it’s time to show the world that you can thr—“

“I don’t want to hear your bullshit words of wisdom!” Korra snapped, and Asami sank back into her chair.

“Just because you’re not yourself doesn’t give you the excuse to act like you’re a _child_!”

Asami covered her mouth, but that didn’t stop the words from escaping. “Gosh, Korra, I’m so sorry.”

Without a response, Korra used all her energy to flop herself away from Asami.

“Korra,” Asami said, “Korra,” she repeated. Her voice was heavy and solemn, but Korra made no move to acknowledge her. “You were completely valid in your fears. I’m sorry I lashed out. Things have been difficult for me and the rest of us these past few months, but it’s nothing in comparison to how you must be feeling.”

Still no response.

Asami stood up. “I’ll let you be by yourself. Unless you want me to send Bolin in? I know he’d be delighted to talk.”

The door was closed, and Asami put her hand on the knob.

“Promise me you’ll call if you need help. For anything.”

Red fabric of Asami’s skirt brushed against the door as it was softly closed behind her. With her forehead pressed inelegantly against the cold plaster of her wall, Korra began to cry once more.


End file.
